Building Tools
See also: Building for an overview of building (an introduction) or Building Guides and Tutorials for a variety of tutorials on different techniques. While gathering tools are used to gather resources outside claims, building tools are used to build on your claim or any claim at which the owner has granted you Builder access. When you are on a claim and click on any of the building tools, you enter "build mode". Hit ESC at any time to release a tool (to switch tools) or to start another activity like placing props. Before you enter build mode, hold down shift and use the scroll wheel on your mouse to zoom out; doing so makes it easier to see what your doing. You can use shoft + scroll to zoon in and out while building too. About Build Tools in Closed Beta During Alpha and early closed beta, the build tools had to be crafted. As of Aug 2014, this is no longer true. *Now you will have all of the build tools automatically placed in your inventory the first time you place a claim. *You must drag each tool from your inventory and into a hotbar at the bottom center of your screen. Note that you have up and down arrows at the left-side (end) of the hotbar, so you can swicth between a hotbar with gathering tools (pick, axe, etc.) and the building tools. *At this time (Aug 2014) you must have your building tools in your personal inventory (bag - press i') when your are building. Moving them to a vault or storage chest will make them vanish from your hotbar. :*To make them reappear in the hotbar, put them back in your personal inventory (bag). Building Terminology Before you read on, it's helpful to know some of the common words used when describing the building process. Voxel Voxel is a casual term used to describe the a single unit of material (in the form of the smallest cube) that can be placed with the Add Tool, but the ''actual voxel is a point inside of the smallest cube. The material that surrounds a single voxel can be warped and manipulated in various ways (eg. smooth tool). Material In the context of building, this is any material gathered (eg. mining) or any material that has be altered by the player, like plain wood that has be turned into plain wood planks at a Tinkerer's Workshop or Saw Table. In the context of building it is selected via the Materials Tray and used to build one voxel at a time or when filling an entire area using keyboard shortcuts and commands or the selection tool. Materials Tray Features The materials tray is how you will see what you have to use when building on your claim, but it is also an excellent shortcut to track a single material you are gathering. *Some materials '''must be refined at by crafting them into new materials before you will see them in your options in the material tray. *You can access the materials by clicking on the striped box when the tray is open. :*You can use a search field to quickly jump to a specific material (eg. Ruby). Examples of materials that must be refined *Plain Wood Logs will only allow you to use rough looking wood while building, while refining them will add more textures, like tiles and flooring that looks like finished wood floors with a horizontal grain. *Lumicite is a stone material that glows in the dark that must be crafted first. *Water must be made from melted snow or ice (during closed beta), which is why it is found under the tab for liquids when you harvest snow and ice. Shapes *Beneath the materials tray is the quick access to some basic shapes that can be used with the Add tool. :*The available shapes have changed during closed beta and may change again at any time. Landscape The natural land (dirt, stone, etc.) that appears within the boundary of a claim that can be deleted or terraformed by the player. This may alternately be referred to as terrain by some players. Prop Any player-made item, like a storage chest or prop-tree that can be manipulated while building. Any tree, plant, or rock within the boundary of a claim at the moment the claim is placed; such trees (etc.) become props and are no longer harvestable once a claim is placed, but players can R click on them to move them around or delete them. Enclose Or the variations: enclosed or enclosing: refers to the actions using the Selection Tool, it describes anything (materials or props) within the area defined by the player while building. Artifact On occasion, the material around a voxel can be deformed in manner that looks spiky, or twisted in an unintended way. Eg. When placing a sphere that is too small, artifacts may appear and make it look lumpy =Individual Building Tools= Below you'll find a summary of the basic purpose of each of the building tools you will get when you place your first claim. Each tool below also has its own page with additional information on use, often including helpful tips and tricks and brief videos with demonstrations of the tool in use to help you retain the basic keyboard shortcuts/commands. Selection Tool The selection tool serves the same purpose as a selection tool in most image editing programs or websites (think of cropping a picture), but in Landmark, it is used to isolate a area within a claim and make a wide variety of changes. It can be used to quickly delete portions the landscape in a claim, to change the look of any player built object (eg. wood stairs, changed to stone), or to smooth anything it is used to enclose. *It is the tool that may take the most practice to learn, but is one of the most' useful because it can be used in many ways. The Selection tool can be manipulated into any square or rectangular shape by: #Clicking in the desired area to activate it #Placing the mouse over either "handles" (small arrows on each corner) or any of a the "faces" (the flat sides), while holding down the L mouse button and #Dragging the selection tool over the area you want to enclose for use with most other building tools. :See the Selection Tool page for more details in uses, demonstration images, and demonstration videos. Add Tool The Add tool can be used place materials on a claim. It can be scaled from a single voxel and up, provided you have enough of the material you intend to place. When you are satisfied with the size or shape, L click to place. *If you do not have enough to of a material place at the time, you'll hear a clicking sound. *When combined with the Selection Tool, activating the Add Tool and moving the mouse over the selected volume, the selection tool will turn yellow. Clicking a selected area will fill the entire volume. :See the Add Tool page for additional information, demonstration images and videos. Delete Tool The Delete tool can be used to remove materials from your claim. It will delete both the natural landscape of the claim or remove any materials you've placed (eg. a stair case you built). *When combined with the Selection Tool, by activating the delete tool the selection tool will turn blue. Clicking will delete anything inside (eg. a tower you built prior). Heal Tool The Heal tool can be used to return the landscape on your claim to its original state. This grants the freedom to delete large areas of the claim without any worry. *When combined with the Selection Tool, by activating the heal tool the selection tool will turn green. Clicking will heal anything inside. Unlike other the add and delete tool, the heal tool will not effect the entire volume of the selected area; instead it may heal and fill the whole selection tool volume (if the selected area was large) or it will heal the selection volume partially, based on the original landscape (eg. a large are under ground will fill completely, while the side of a hill will return with it's natural curvature only. Smooth Tool The Smooth Tool will smooth any rough edges on a player-built object or on the natural landscape of a claim. If used too aggressively, it will remove too much material, so use it carefully. It is also used in many advanced building techniques (eg. creating inlays). Paint Tool The Paint tool is used to replace a material or texture in a player-built object or the natrual landscape on a claim with a different material or texture. *This allows for quickly altering the look of an object after it has been built or after a template has been placed (eg. changing a stone staircase to wood or switching from large stone bricks to a small stone bricks. Line Tool The Line tool is used to build slopes, inclined pillars and various volumes joining two different surfaces. Overview of Keyboard Commands See specific tools for additional commands. The list below is a summary of basic building command that work on most tools Closed Beta Building Tool Demonstrations *A quick (5 min) video that covers only of the basic keyboard commands that are used often while building can be seen here. See each of the pages for individual tool pages linked above for additional functions like copy/paste, templates, and more or check the YouTube channel (Yasuewho) for addition videos. *This video covers the basics of all building tools including all keybindings as of 4/19/14. :Since it was recorded, scaling cubes and spheres in build mode is now fluid - that is, you no longer need to switch between 2 scales, you just use the scroll wheel on the mouse to go from smallest to largest (works with Add, Delete, and Smooth): About Advanced Building Techniques Besides the conventional voxel generated through the building tools there exist special types like micro voxels, anti voxels and zero voxels one can create ingame which allow more advanced building and higher detail grades. A list of other building guides can be found here and many more are available on YouTube. Beta Bugs *The clicking sound that can normally be heard when you do not have enough of a material may still sound off when you do have enough. If this happens you might need to L click a few times to get the tool to work (eg. deleting with the selection tool, placing a large cube) *Some tools may misbehave if you are scrolled in too close (in first person). For example, you may get stuck in tweak mode (shift + left click) or accidentally cancel the use of the selection tool without hitting ESC. To correct it, hit ESC, hold down Shift and use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom out before you build again. Category:Building Tools